MJC_MKI

Delighted with that result and again very happy to have been proved wrong. We need to be beating the likes of St.Mirren at home and it's great that we've done that with a solid display into the bargain. It's been a good day all round result wise, with Accies and Kilmarnock both losing so that gives us a bit more of a cushion over the teams below us.

2-0 St.Mirren.

But there's the problem, what manager is going to come to Motherwell and commit himself for at least a few years? Any young and up and coming boss or someone like McGhee who is remotely successful at a club like ours will be offski after one or possibly two seasons at the most. I too have doubts over Craig Brown, given his age and the amount of time he was out of the game but at least with him he's unlikely to be touting himself for jobs elsewhere on such a regular basis. Also, his style of play may be boring, but this is the man who has lead Scotland to a European Championsip and a World Cup during his time as National manager, something that all of his successors have failed do to, so he must have done something right. Tommy McLean's Motherwell team was never known for it's blinding, champagne football either, but in the ten years of it, brought the club back into the top flight and a Scottish Cup win. Sometimes you need to sacrifice 'good football' for success.

We will never know how it would have turned out, but Jim Gannon did a decent job in the short time he was here. He arrived to find a squad stripped to the very bones having lost Clarkson, Quinn, Smith, Hughes & Klimpl, all regulars from last season and was thrust straight into a Europa League campaign. Despite some embarrassing setbacks in losing first legs to both Llanelli and Flamurtari, we managed to turn it around both times, securing our biggest win in European competition in doing so before bowing out to a far superior Steaua Bucharest, who would have beaten the vast majority of sides in the SPL. We then had a very solid start to the season where we more than surpassed expectations and remained unbeaten until the final Saturday in September. Whatever way you dress that up, that's a fantastic statistic for Motherwell, even more so when you consider the squad of players we had achieved it with. We were always going to hit a slump though as there was no way we would have been able to keep that sort of form up and that duly came, but we still remained fairly solid - result wise anyway - until the beginning of December, so that certainly was a big plus point from Gannon's tenure. Towards the end it was starting to appear as though he didn't want to be here anymore, for whatever reason and I think there was some serious dis-harmony within the dressing room and performances were definately getting worse and worse, not that they were that brilliant to begin with mind. There were also some baffling decisions made by Gannon regarding selections and substitutions, many of which appeared to be completely un-neccessary and the football we were playing was awful to watch. As for the whole 'fued' with the referees and the media, I just found that strange to say the least as it appeared to be over very little indeed and it did cross my mind that he was trying to create a smokescreen to deflect attention away from either himself or the team. It didn't surprise me in the slightest when Gannon and Motherwell FC parted company and I don't have any good or ill feeling toward the man. He did okay with what he had to work with, nothing more, nothing less and only time will tell whether it will be a good move by the club to get rid of him and replace him with a 69 year old who's been idle from the game for over five years.

Problem is though, Craig Brown is almost 70 years old. Will he want to commit himself to a deal for two years or more? Or will the club want him to? I don't think there was ever any doubt that he would get the gig until the end of the season, as soon as he was appointed on a 'caretaker' basis after Gannon got the boot then there was no way anyone else was going to be considered for the job in the short term anyway. However, I'm not convinced he's the man we need just now. He's too old, but more importantly, he's been out of the game for far too long for my liking and for him to come in and have to work with a squad made up largely of youngsters represents a massive gamble in my opinion. We are in a relegation battle, don't kid yourself otherwise and I'm not writing us off or saying that we are certainties for the drop or anything like that just now, but I do think that it's a massive job for the manager to steer us through the next few months and I have worries over how Brown will be able to cope with that. Only time will tell though...

Yup, you said it boy. That's why I said that what I said.

I'd bite your hand off for a replay right now. But I think we'll be doing very well indeed to get even that. I'll stick my neck out and say that we're out the Cup.

2-1 to Inverness.

We go over this same point year in, year out, almost as often as the "Old Firm moving to England" debate. But it won't happen and neither should it. For starters it's not practical when you take into account European Championships & World Cups which take place every two years and also, as has been said before it would greatly affect the TV coverage of our game as it would be up against Wimbledon & cricket & World Cup/European Championships etc. So they won't support it, given that it's the TV companies that pull the strings in football these days. Also, folk need to remember that is Scotland that we live in, not the south of Spain. We get bad weather here, not just in the winter months, but in the summer aswell, when we can get 'monsoon' type conditions, unseasonable wet spells that can go on for weeks and 'freak' summer thunderstorms that cause flash flooding, chaos on the roads etc. If you think back to the day we qualified for Europe in 2008, had the thunderstorm that happend that day struck fifteen minutes earlier, then that game would not have finished as the pitch would not have stood up to it. And that was in May! The folk that keep banging on about this seem to come at it with the view that we get wall to wall sunshine from April until September but nothing could be further from the truth. This has been a severe winter, but how often is it quite as bad as this? It wasn't just the football calender that was affected, it was the entire country as travel was severely disrupted, supplies of road salt was running low and some folk couldn't even get to their work for weeks. This country as a whole is not equipped to deal with severe bad weather so it doesn't matter when the football is played, there will always be problems with the elements.

And delighted to be so. Tremendous result today and by the sounds of things the performance was night and day to the last few months under Gannon. That's very encouraging to hear.

I just hope we don't end up regretting all those missed chances.

I think I did once in a League Cup tie against third division Alloa many, many moons ago. I thought 'we're playing at home against a lower league, part time outfit, there's no way we'll lose here".....and we did, on penalties after a 0-0 draw. Never again

It's going to be six in a row I fear. Killie have made a very good move by appointing Jimmy Calderwood as manager and he will be able to steer them clear of relegation, I have no doubt about that. We meantime are stuttering along - as we always do - with an interm manager who doesn't know if he's here for the duration or not and can't do anything to strengthen the squad given the fact that the chairman is on holiday. I fully expect Jimmy Calderwood - someone who would have been ideal for us just now - to begin his Killie career with three points against us as we have nothing about us just now that suggests that we can pick up our poor form and quite frankly, having 69 year old, out of the game for eight years Craig Brown in charge doesn't fill me with any confidence whatsoever. I reckon 1-0 to the Ayrshire mob on Saturday.

Oh yes we can...

Yes. If nothing else just to see the reaction of the 'Fuck Hearts Wankers' brigade on here.

We won't get past Inverness IMO, so the 5th Round draw that sees us go to either Falkirk or Killie, pish as it is I reckon will end up irrelevant.

Didn't like him when he was at Hearts, but that was mostly down to some of the players they had at that time, and the fact that they almost always beat us. However, I am big enough to see past the 'Hearts connection' that no doubt would cloud many older Motherwell fan's judgements and I really think that we could do a lot worse than Jim Jeffries. He is a proven SPL manager who is an excellent tactician and knows how to make his sides hard to beat. At a club like Motherwell we're not really in a position to be choosers and I think Jeffries would do a good job for us. Don't think there's much chance of it happening though so the hardcore Jambo haters in our support needn't worry.

Burst pipes apparantely...

Well wonder no more because we are.

HAPPY NEW YEAR ALL

I wasn't there myself but that's piss poor if true. He was the "Saviour/Messiah" up until the beginning of the week and now he's gone he's a 'Paedophile', just like his predecessor. Some of our fans are like fucking weans with their repeated and over use of a naughty word that they don't really understand the meaning of. And can we not think of something other than "Craig Brown's Motherwell army" as a chant for our manager? Just like "Terry Butcher's/Mark McGhee's and Jim Gannon's Motherwell army"? A bit of originality for once maybe?

It is a must win game but we won't win IMO. Accies will beat us.

So we play well, create plenty of chances yet come away with nothing as we register our fifth straight defeat. That's relegation form and unless we start picking up soon then we are in serious trouble. Oh aye and well done Kris Boyd.

Completely share that view I'm afraid. I see absolutely nothing to convince me otherwise as playing Hearts at Tynecastle is hard enough but when you are playing as poorly as we are, we don't stand a chance, and Accies will come to Fir Park next Saturday desperate to beat us and they will, of that I am certain because they have players who are able to fight for the jersey and grind out results, we don't. They have also picked up a bit of form of late whilst we have been freefalling. Mark my words, we are in for a relegation battle and I just pray to God that we find the stomach for it pretty damn soon. And I wouldn't bet against Inverness giving us a sound beating in the Cup the following Saturday either. The future is bleak.

That's us officially in freefall.